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What is volunteer tourism? Is it connected to the white savior complex? Can we actually help by sending volunteers for week-long trips around the world?

Tourism is an extremely interesting social phenomenon. Due to constant development, it is one of the keys to understanding the modern world. It is a movement in which the inhabitants of the rich North go on vacation to the countries of the South. Hundreds of millions of intercultural encounters each year add up to form relationships between entire societies. This is how billions of photos, videos, stories, and TikTok messages are created. It is a comprehensive documentation of exchanges among cultures. A tourist aware of global interdependencies, causes and consequences of tourist behaviors as well as conscious of being subject to psychological, commercial, and ideological processes is a post-tourist. Where does he go? What kind of accounts does he prepare? What is he talking about and to whom is he addressing his words?

Microaggressions, jokes, words implying otherness – discrimination in everyday life can take on seemingly harmless forms. What is humor for and does it have to be black? Is it there to relieve tension or to deal with it? How long does it take society to accept changes in language? How to make others more sensitive in their everyday language use? Who carries out this process and how? What is happening with the Polish language today? What kind of developments and fashions is it currently undergoing?

The topic of the meeting is racism – a belief that one race is superior to another. It is a heterogeneous phenomenon, and it can be effectively analyzed only in a clearly outlined historical context. Our field of research will be capitalism, i.e. an economic system based on private property. We will look at how this system divides and rules, creating hierarchies and identity contradictions. An example that we will subject to detailed analyses is Eurocentrism, which takes the form of colonialism, culturalism and orientalism.

A failure to deal with fear lies at the bottom of many life difficulties. Felt every day, fear can pose a threat to mental and physical health, and in a broader perspective, also seriously affect the social order. Under its influence, we perceive the world around us in a distorted way. We enter relationships with new people with reserve and reluctance. We distance ourselves from the unknown. The outside world can appear perilous. Understanding the nature of one’s fear is essential to improving our quality of life. By approaching other people, empathizing, enjoying and loving.

For whom life in Poland is easier and for whom it is harder? What is the cause of hatred and what are its cultural, historical and economic determinants? What function can hate play in society, and what if society expects from us something that we fear?

Language fundamentally impacts our perception of the world. How we talk about other people and places reveals how we feel and think about them. Stories are narrated to us in specific ways that can influence our worldview. Listen to Lera Boroditsky’s talk for an in-depth examination of this issue.

The lecture “Colonial History – Postcolonial Societies: On the Politics of Selective Memory in Europe” examined the problematics of postcolonialism and postcolonial societies. The lecture was delivered, by Professor Gurminder K. Bhambra of the University of Sussex, as a part of the CoHERE “Who Is Europe?” conference, which took place, on November 22–23, 2018, at the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw.

How much influence have the stories we’ve been told had on us? How does a representation of the world that overlooks its multifaceted complexity risk luring us into the trap of rigid thought patterns?

Issues pertaining to race are often raised in public discourse, with race used by some to perpetuate divisions within society. Throughout history, racial animus has been the driving force behind campaigns to disparage and harm groups of people denigrated as inferior. It is a toxic phenomenon incited by hate speech and based on the bisection of society into two groups: us versus them. Kasia Gandor exposes racialism’s lack of scientific basis.

What are the characteristics of empathy and why is it different from sympathy? Why is empathy so important, and can be a great help to others? Acclaimed professor Brené Brown talks about the value and effect of empathy.

With many accounts of war, we primarily get frontline stories of soldiers and combat. In 2010, at TEDGlobal, Zainab Salbi focused on the crucial “backline” efforts of women seeking to sustain everyday life through periods of conflict. Salbi also emphasized the importance for women to claim their seats at the negotiating table post-conflict.

The effects of climate change disproportionally impact different regions of the world, with people living in the countries of the Global South feeling those impacts more acutely. Listen to Magan Ali, an employee of Polish Humanitarian Action in Somalia, describe the climatic conditions the country faces.